In a Room at Amphipolis
by thatisanicecoat
Summary: Xena has had a few ales, and she stumbles back into the room she shares with Gabrielle. Her past haunting her, Gabreille wakens to a broken woman. And she sits up, listening to Xena tell the tale of her beginnings in Amphipolis.


**In a Room at Amphipolis**

The room sat in darkness, a liquid thing in scarce moonlight. When Xena lifted the key latch, a dim light fanned into the room. It illumined the rise of a shoulder, the curve of a slender hip; the sheets rose and fell evenly, slowly, temperedly. The bard was asleep.

Closing the door, Xena fell into the blackness once more. Drunk or not, the warrior was attuned to working in the dark. She removed her armor, carefully setting the tarnished pieces on the seat of a chair. She shrugged out of her leathers and slung them on the back of the chair. Her sword, she dealt with lovingly, laying it at the side of the bed within easy reach. Without stirring the sleeping woman, Xena climbed in beside her and drew the sheet over her legs.

When she laid her head upon the softness of a goose-down pillow, she felt again how drunk she was. The room heaved around and she found herself resorting to an old trick she had learned the hard way in her youth. She stuck a leg out from the covers and planted her foot firmly on the floor. It grounded her in its most literal sense.

"Xena?" came the dusky voice.

"Wha—yeah, it's me," replied the warrior.

"Where have you been?" The bed shifted under Gabrielle's weight as she turned to face her friend.

"With Ilus."

"He's a gentle man. I like him," said Gabrielle, her words wistful and still full of dreams. "How long have you known him?"

"Ages," replied Xena, feeling her foot brush against the cool metal of her sword.

"How long is ages?"

"I'm very tired, Gabrielle."

"And very drunk," said the bard, although Xena can hear the teasing in her voice.

"We grew up here together," answered the warrior. She gestured toward the window, as if she and Ilus had passed by this very windowsill as children. They might have in fact. For she and Gabrielle were in a room at the Inn of Amphipolis. Cyrene had sent word of trouble in the city of Xena's youth. And it was true, hearing of the Warrior Princess' softening, like shoe leather over time, a warlord had made threats toward the city as if to strut and spit at the Lion of Amphipolis. And so, the pair had traveled five days and five nights from the western plains to sort out this misunderstanding. In the morning, Xena would ride out to meet this warlord and correct his assumption.

Though Xena was keen to visit her mother, she did not like the idea of returning home. She walked through the city's streets, tall and stiff, her eyes flashing at any grimace or sly look the townspeople sent her way. Not everyone welcomed back the Lion who had stolen their sons so many years ago. It had been a year since the warrior and her bard had dispelled Draco from these lands, and it seemed the well-meaning act did not convince many of Xena's change of heart. Gabrielle could see how adrift her friend felt, how rootless. Where do you turn, if your own homeland does not welcome you?

"Ilus didn't seem so happy to see you," said Gabrielle, tentatively.

"No," replied Xena. Blue eyes focused on ceiling beams stretching up through the darkness.

"Will you put your arms around me?" asked Gabrielle. She felt warm in the small room that sat next to the kitchens, but she knew that Xena needed to feel anchored right now. Else, her spirit would wander through the rooms of the Inn, mourning each scar on the table where her brother once lay dead, turning each corner to greet a new ghost.

Gabrielle felt long, purposeful arms pull her forward into the curve of a warm body. Xena's scent came to her then, the special scent that can never be described but only sampled, the smoke from the hearth fire, the rusted, clean scent of ale on her breath.

Gabrielle shivered, convincing Xena more that she had had a chill and needed the warmth of her friend. But the shiver was born of intense heat, of the body temperature rapidly changing, as one feels when getting into a hot bath.

"Were you and Ilus friends once?" said Gabrielle.

"Yes, once."

"And he fought with you, against Cortese I mean?"

Xena pulled the bard more closely against her, liking the curve of Gabrielle's forehead pressed against the curve of her neck. She buried her nose into soft, fragrant hair. "No, he was too young," she whispered. The bard's hair tickled her lips.

The bard drew up a hand and cupped Xena's cheek. The warrior winced.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, making her touch more gentle. She ran her thumb lightly over Xena's lip and felt the roughness of a scab.

"Not badly."

"You were in a fight?" asked Gabrielle.

"Yes."

"With who?"

"Ilus."

"Oh, Xena." The bard acted upon instinct then and leaned up toward Xena's mouth. She pressed a kiss against the split in the warrior's bottom lip. Lingering near Xena's lips for the space of a breath, Gabrielle pressed another kiss. For a moment, Xena kissed her back stiffly. And suddenly, the woman opened her mouth, her full lips scarlet in the pale moonlight and Gabrielle tasted the metallic sweetness of blood and ale and of Xena herself. She pushed the bard onto her back, hovering over her, covering her, her hair like plumage. Xena descended upon the prostrate woman, grasping her hip and slipping a thigh between her legs. Kisses came like drips of tears over Gabrielle's neck, her collarbone, between her breasts. And then, suddenly, all movement stopped.

"Oh gods," hissed Xena. She sat up, the sheets falling from her. She swung her other leg out of bed and made to stand, but a small hand grasped her shoulder.

"Don't," said Gabrielle, "Don't leave. You always leave."

"Gabrielle…"

"Stay with me, please."

"How can I?"

"People don't just disappear after you leave them. If pain is what you've left with them, then it's with pain that you'll remember them. How they'll remember you."

"Don't you think I suffer?" said Xena, her words harsh.

"I know you suffer. But, then again, I am always with you. You're very quiet about it, but I know how you suffer."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"The people you love pain you the most."

Xena snorted, as if in disgust.

"That's why coming back here isn't such a bad thing," Gabrielle continued. "Ilus has been left with his pain for a very long time. But, if he was once your friend, he can learn to love you again. And you can learn to love yourself."

Gabrielle spoke like a priestess with a vision. Her hand had not left Xena's shoulder and Xena had not stood from the bed.

"Ilus' brother fought and died in my war," she said as if in confession. "Dimas…" Xena pronounced the name like a secret, it probably having been the first time she had spoken the dead boy's name in twelve years. The stiff line of the warrior's shoulders bend, and Xena doubled over, her face on her knees. Her body began to quake then. And for a moment, Gabrielle let her cry and did not touch her. She knew to let alone a wounded animal.

This was the first time Gabrielle had borne witness to Xena's pain. And as the seasons stretched hard and long before them, as they tripped and galloped over nameless mountain ranges and sailed over unexplored seas, Gabrielle experienced Xena's pain in a thousand different ways. She experienced her own pain, her own regrets. But this was Gabrielle's first introduction into the mind of grieving, guilty person.

Tentatively, Gabrielle placed her small hands on Xena's broad shoulders. And when the woman did not respond, Gabrielle pushed herself up and draped herself bodily over Xena's back like a covering of wings. She notched her chin in the crook of the woman's neck and put her lips to her ear.

"Be still now, Xena," she whispered, "I'm here." She drew her arms around Xena's chest and pressed her fiercely against her own body. Xena snared both the woman's hands in her own and brought the knuckles up to kiss them. Gabrielle felt hot tears drop against her skin. She did not move, merely draped over Xena, ridiculously suspended in the air.

"The sad thing is," came Xena's scratched voice, "is that I was a kid then too. You know? A stupid, naïve girl who got caught up in… I was trying to do the right thing." It is almost a pleading for Gabrielle to understand, to empathize. The girl draws back from her then, guiding her gently back so that they lay entwined together against the pillows. Gabrielle could feel the heat from the kitchen furnace through the wall.

"And the year that followed," Xena's voice gained strength, "I still thought I was doing the right thing. I was protecting my people. Defeating Cortese, building an army, creating a buffer in the surrounding towns. It was all for the people of Amphipolis. Because I loved my people. I love my people," she corrected, "We are a rugged bunch, for sure, the mountains making us hard. Some people even consider us the backwaters of Greece. But, I loved the cold beauty of winter in my land. Fish were in the streams and elk in the steppes. I loved hunting quail in spring. So did Lyceus. They took to roost in the western hills. And we would go as parties, me and Lyceus and Toris and Alethea and Dimas and Illus," she rattled off the names like a death toll, "and I destroyed all that. I led their sons and fathers to war, and ravaged the land. I burnt the crops. Worse yet, I made my own people burn our own land. All because I was young and foolish and in love with the thought of War. And they hate me for it. But the thing is…."

Xena paused, settling her head into the cradle of Gabrielle's stomach. She felt the soft cotton of her friend's shift beneath her cheek, and the warmth of the girl's skin beneath that.

"The thing is that I don't hate myself for it. At least, not for that. I recognize my mistakes then as those made by a young woman. I felt a terrible burden at such a young age. The reason why I hate myself," and Xena becomes deadly serious now, "is because I ceased to fight for anything, but for the sake of fighting. You don't know the half of what terrible things I've done. Some day, you'll know. They're bound to haunt me. Show their faces. And I'm afraid, truly afraid, of that time when you'll know everything."

When Xena's voice ceased, the blackness of the room seemed blacker. The silence was not a happy one. Gabrielle sifted the strands of inky hair between her fingers and gazed on the face of her friend. Her poor friend, her terrible, beautiful friend. It was the longest speech Gabrielle had ever heard uttered by the stoic woman. Perhaps drunkenness does have its merits.

"It's some poetic irony isn't it?" said Gabrielle, finally. She felt Xena shuffle around.

"It is, I think," Gabrielle continued, "You said the only thing you ever fought for that was noble, was for your people. Well, you spent many years forgetting that, Xena. Many years. And yet, here we are, in a room at Amphipolis. And in the morning, you'll fight again for your people. Kinda full circle, huh?"

Xena sat up and now looked fully at her young friend. Oh, she was so young, so innocent. And yet, the girl had not the brash naivety that had marked her own youth. The girl was oddly assured and she spoke with a conviction that belonged only to small children and sages.

"I don't deserve you," said Xena, earnestly. She found the child in herself when she looked at Gabrielle.

"Go to sleep now," said Gabrielle, tutting. She pulled the warrior back down against her and pulled the sheet over them. "We have a lot of work to do in the morning."

"We?" But Xena's voice had grown weak with fatigue.

"Of course," replied Gabrielle. And then her breathing drew deep. A moment later, and Xena chased her friend into the garden of dreams.

**A/N: **Hello readers, I hope you enjoyed this little story. I certainly had fun writing it.

If you did enjoy this story, or have enjoyed some of my other stories, like _The Rebel_, please take a look at my current Kickstarter page. I am finished a novel at the moment, and I desperately need your help. Please go to Kickstarter to learn more about my project and how you can get involved and help a poor writer out.

FF won't allow me to post a link, but please go to and search the project, "A Writer Writes… Right?" or my name: Jennifer Amell.

Thank you!


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